My trip to Kerala was one of the memorable journeys i ever had. Its one of the most beautiful places in India. My travel was not like a backpacker’s one, so i was not able to cover many places there, but i tried to visit at least the important ones.
We had gone with a package tour from KTDC under which the travel, stay and food was completely taken care by Kerala tourism. Our trip comprised of Munnar, Kumarkom, Trivandrum and Kanyakumari.
Our first stop was a waterfall, on the way to Munnar, which was quite a site, but after a long train travel and a ghat journey I was not able to enjoy it much. But its like the first tourist spot to see.
Then the next stop was the heavenly Munnar. Though i find all the hill stations same, 😛 be it; Gangtok, Darjeeling or Shimla , Munnar was my personal favourite. It was cool, serene and beautiful. In Munnar we visited Mattupetty dam, Echo point,Tea Plantations and Floriculture center. Out of these places only Mattupetty dam was quite a site, rest of the places could have been ignored. But two things which should not be ignored in Munnar are the Elephant ride and visit to Punarjani village. This is what happened at Punarjani village.
The price tickets ranged from 200 to 300 depending on the seating place, like a movie theatre,but trust me even if you take the 200 ticket and sit in 300 row, no one will know :). The Elephant ride was 500 per person and it was the most majestic ride i ever had. You should not miss them.
We then reached Kumarakom which is the back waters area. We were staying at waterscapes resort which actually is made inside a bird sanctuary, so you see the Sanctuary for free :). But more than birds we saw water there. The place looked like this. I just remembered “water water everywhere but not a drop to drink”,
The resort was really well made, and was completely made on water. So there was back waters in the front, there was a swimming pool next to it and it was pouring heavily :). In the night it got really scary. There is a boat ride which is arranged by the resort folks but its not worth how much they charge. You can go out and hunt for boats and we finished our ride in 500 bucks. On the boat ride, we saw many houseboats, and after a point the fish stink of the water was unbearable and i wanted to go back to place where there was not so much water. And as i was thinking this, our boat stopped midway, but thankfully after a few prayers it started and we reached back safely. 🙂
Our next destination was Trivandrum where we saw Kovalam beach, Napaier Museum, Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple. I love to say Kovalam in the special mallu accent :). It is indeed a nice beach. Napaier musem, was a huge mistake to visit. To visit Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple , women should compulsorily be in Sarees and men should wear only dhotis. And in that temple, everything is so commercialised that i hardly felt it to be a sacred place.
Our final destination was Kanyakumari, one of the most sort after places in our country. It is a temple town is what i felt. The process there is to take tickets and stand in a huge queue. There is boat ride waiting which takes you to three different places with halts in between. It was so hot, that i could hardly enjoy the place, but i did see the three colors of water which is the meeting point of three bodies of water and is quite a remarkable site to see.
The food in kerala is not something i relished. I liked the fish there, but otherwise the rice was just not edible for me. But i have heard that food there is really tasty, so may be i missed out on the good places. So thats for you to try 🙂
But Kerela is indeed god’s country country. Nature is at its best there. And the people came across as friendly folks, though understanding malyalam is quite a task :P.
I wish to see Rajasthan next 🙂 , till then keep i hope you enjoy reading my other blog posts 🙂 here
Photos not to be used for reproduction
On a long journey with Calvin and Hobbes 